REVIEW: Is Inception This Year's Masterpiece? Dream On
If the career of Christopher Nolan is any indication, we've entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn't nearly the same thing.
In Inception, Nolan does the impossible, the unthinkable, the stupendous: He folds a mirror version of Paris back upon itself; he stages a fight sequence in a gravity-free hotel room; he sends a train plowing through a busy city street. Whatever you can dream, Nolan does it in Inception. Then he nestles those little dreams into even bigger dreams, and those bigger dreams into gargantuan dreams, going on into infinity, cubed. He stretches the boundaries of filmmaking so that it's, like, not even filmmaking anymore, it's just pure "OMG I gotta text my BFF right now" sensation.
Wouldn't it have been easier just to make a movie?
But that urgent simplicity, that directness of focus, is beyond Nolan: Everything he does is forced and overthought, and Inception, far from being his ticket into hall-of-fame greatness, is a very expensive-looking, elephantine film whose myriad so-called complexities -- of both the emotional and intellectual sort -- add up to a kind of ADD tedium. This may be a movie about dreams, but there's nothing dreamlike or evocative about it: Nolan doesn't build or sustain a mood; all he does is twist the plot, under, over, and back upon itself, relying on Hans Zimmer's sonic boom of a score to remind us when we should be excited or anxious or moved. It's less directing than directing traffic.
Nolan's aim, perhaps, is to keep us so confused we won't dare question his genius. The movie opens with Leonardo DiCaprio being washed up on a beach somewhere -- mysteriously, there are two little blond children cavorting around, though we can't see their faces. Then some Japanese soldiers drag him into a menacing-looking seaside castle nearby. Then he sits down at a table, opposite some mysterious old guy, and proceeds to eat some gruel. What, you might ask, is going on here, as bits of runny porridge drip from the haggard-looking DiCaprio's lips? You're supposed to be perplexed -- it's all part of the movie's puzzly-wuzzly structure.
Before long we learn that DiCaprio's character is an "extractor," meaning he's a skilled craftsman who can enter others' dreams to draw out valuable information, useful, particularly, in corporate espionage. His name is Dom Cobb -- which is, I guess, better than being called Com Dobb -- and not only does he have the ability to enter others' dreams; he actually builds those dreams, with the help of his number-two man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), plus an architect, who had better know what he or she is doing. The architect working for Cobb at the beginning of the movie (he's played, all too briefly, by Lukas Haas) meets a bad end after installing the wrong kind of shag carpeting in an important dream. Perhaps these dreams need interior decorators, too, to prevent future faux pas, but let's not get off-track.
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"Just making a movie" would involve "urgent simplicity" and a "directness of focus" and would NOT involve being "forced and overthought".
Of course, you would know that if you could read.
People would look at you funny if you said you didn't like Pixar movies (I know, I get those looks sometimes). It's become conventional wisdom to prefer Pixar movies to Dreamworks or anybody else.
Pauline Kael, one of the most widely respected critics in the country, was good friends with SZ. So fail for you.
"Doesn't sound like a professional critic to me, more like a jealous, prepubescent, little girl"
Cry moar plz.
"Try judging his films rather than insulting the filmmaker based solely on infantile assumptions"
You can only judge a filmaker after seeing his films. Every one of them follows the same retarded pattern over and over again. She doesn't like his films, so therefore she doesn't like him as a filmaker.
"My assumption is that you've concocted your entire outlook on this film from believing yourself to be on a higher intellectual level than the new class of Nolan fan that came out of The Dark Knight's success "
Try judging her reviews instead of the reviewer based on infantile assumptions.
Your lame (and largely false) insult is more convoluted than Chris Nolan's movies. Who's the real sourpuss?
" I wonder how Steph will feel about Salt? Best movie in a thousand years?"
Salt has Angelina Jolie and that black guy from Serenity and 2012 whose name escapes me. And there's no high-concept hooey. So I'd say she's probably going to like it. I call 6.
M lep
Why is the level of vitriol so alarming?
Is there a greater problem that needs to be addressed?
What are you passionate about? (aside from being an advocate for a greater understanding in life)
Do you ever get really incensed over something trivial?
I would assume you've done that a few times in your life.
You're only human right?
i support genocide.
what the fuck are you trying to say? you and the other rotten tomatoes idiots barge in out of nowhere once every summer to vigorously defend the latest fashion (the specially obsessed lurk around armond's comment section - he does it all for you, be grateful). the first few times it cropped up, i assumed it would pass. it's an epidemic of anti-intellectualism.
Seriously, this movie was an incomprehensible mess trying too hard to please mountain dew chugging Halo fanboys and Jonah Hex wasn't? What's more disturbing is that this "critic" went to the movies with preconceived ideas about the director. Obviously she comes from the Armond White School of Troll...I mean "Film Criticism". I have yet to see this movie but I am almost certain it will be better than Transformers 2.
You are nuts man. Leo's most "mature" work? What do you mean by that exactly? And by far, not Cillian's best work. Not in any way poor, but not his best. Check out Peacock. He looks extremely feminine to me in this film because of my alone time with Peacock.
There's much to be said for REAL independence, and if Zacharek really were the free, independent thinker she likes to delude herself she is, I'd be the first to support her. But she's not. She's an intellectual fraud. Much like Armond, she never builds a convincing case for her alternate choices.
I'm not big on Nolan either, but the problem with Zacharek is she's so crushingly predictable in her "unpredictability." She has her little pet favorites who are excused for all their shortcomings, and she has her pet hates (one of whom is Nolan) who she's determined to loathe. Which would be fine, and more than fine, except she fails to explain why Nolan's brand of pseudo-"awesomeness," is so objectionable, while similar mind-bender films are praiseworthy.
For example, Pauline Kael (Zacharek's idol) had this to say about The Matrix: "I would find it very hard to explain why I liked it so much, but I think it’s awfully good." Zacharek's first paragraph of her Inception review could just as cogently be applied to the Matrix movies:
"If the career of Christopher Nolan is any indication, we’ve entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn’t nearly the same thing. In Inception, Nolan does the impossible, the unthinkable, the stupendous: He folds a mirror version of Paris back upon itself; he stages a fight sequence in a gravity-free hotel room; he sends a train plowing through a busy city street. Whatever you can dream, Nolan does it in Inception. Then he nestles those little dreams into even bigger dreams, and those bigger dreams into gargantuan dreams, going on into infinity, cubed. He stretches the boundaries of filmmaking so that it’s, like, not even filmmaking anymore, it’s just pure “OMG I gotta text my BFF right now” sensation... Wouldn’t it have been easier just to make a movie?"
See how easy it is to dance the Stephanie Zacharek dance? Just plug in the word "The Matrix" and "Warshawski brothers" wherever Zacharek writes "Inception" and "Nolan." In what way are the Matrix movies free of the qualities Zacharek lambasts Inception for manifesting? Obviously, for any honest, consistent, scrupulously truthful viewer, they aren't.
Zacharek can either admit Kael (and possibly herself) was one of the suckers, dupes, and credulous fools she scorns Nolan's fans for being, or she can admit she's engaged in blatant double standards, and her criteria for handing out praise or pans is wildly inconsistent, capricious, and arbitrary. Otherwise, she's a hypocrite.
Straw man argument. it's the same b.s. that she put in her review, that we 'have' to be impressed by the amount of work that they put in (we don't) or in the cass of Nolan, how much praise he gets. That is at the heart of her contrary nature, inventing positions based on perceived arguments and they rebelling against them. That she can successfully simulate a popular opinion gives her shtick currency. I had a very interesting conversation with an animator the other day abut Pixar. She was not a fan, I am. But her argument never degenerated into, "we're supposed to like or appreciate them, so I don't". There are plenty of reasons to like Inception and Pixar, and plenty to not - but her self-serving antagonistic reviews are just pathetic. Like I said, Armond White but without the guts - or insanity maybe.
You do know that Kael is long dead right, so how exactly SZ is still taking marching orders from her?I've read all of Kael. I like her and I see the resemblance to Stephanie in the attention to detail, knowledge of film history, and utter disgust at pretentiousness, but that's about it. Stephanie calls them as she seems them and she doesn't seem to see much in Nolan, which thoroughly annoys Nolan's incredibly devoted fans, who can't imagine anyone not loving their hero. Talk about group think. Kind of scary.
Are you serious? The police are up there. It's simple that they would cut him down and take him to Arkham Asylum.
You people that need to see every little thing are a cancer on the film world.
That is because we see it from Bruce's pov, not Harvey's. Regardless, the death is only a catalyst to start his descension to madness which is finalized by the Joker. We already know that Harvey is a "two face" kind of guy.
It is still quite jolting, considering Bruce believes that she and him will be together, eventually, and that Bruce thinks he is about to saver her.
I really enjoyed the movie, and I'm struggling to find something I didn't enjoy. I'd give it a 10, and I hardly ever do that. If someone doesn't like it, I'd wonder why. But I wouldn't be upset or annoyed. But to spend 2 pages insulting it like it was the worst movie you've seen since Gigli, that's just irritating. It reeks of the sensationalistic media we've seen in the past decade. I've never read a review by her before. But geez, she really seems like she's trying to push an agenda with this review. I just think it's disingenuous and maybe even a little dishonest/unethical.
I've never seen so many replies to a review. The Hive Mind is angry! I just saw this disappointment, and I would give it a 5, maybe a 6. It's easy enough to understand, but it's just too long, too drawn too, with too much CGI, and way too many massive plot holes. In short, it's just too much. The annoying ending didn't help matters.
I give Nolan credit for trying something different, but this is a case of a director reaching way beyond his talent level. Of course, the Hive Mind will send fanboys out in force so that Inception will have a strong opening weekend, and it will probably tank after that.
My alt-account senses are tingling...
You must be punished for spelling illiteracy wrong.
Shut it.
this woman obviously has NO idea about or understanding of cinema
"Are you serious? The police are up there. It's simple that they would cut him down and take him to Arkham Asylum. "
They could be corrupt. Or maybe more of The Joker's henchmen cut him down instead, or maybe he cut himself down and limped away to freedom. And according to the movie, Arkham Asylum doesn't exist. So how simple is it really?
"You people that need to see every little thing are a cancer on the film world."
Not in the least. If more people demanded visual coherence films would be a lot better. You guys accuse M. Night Shyamalan of breaking the "show, don't tell" rule, but Nolan is guilty of that just as often as M. is. And his action sequences are similary incoherent.
Cool story, bro.
Pathetic how the obtuse pride themselves with an opposing view as if there's any inherent merit in it. They would ignorantly contradict even the most adept and keen out of arrogance, insecurity, and spite. How else could they manage a feeling of superiority.
Pauline Kael would have loved Nolan.
You're a "free thinking" idiot, congrats.
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